Don’t Turn a Deaf Ear to Your Community

By: Jack Stornello

A little over a week ago, there was a great disturbance in one corner of the gaming community – as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Later that same week, in another corner, millions of voices erupted into momentous jubilation. I’m speaking, of course, of the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare announcement on May 2 and the Battlefield 1 announcement on May 6. Infinity Ward, the developers of Call of Duty, gave their fanbase the exact opposite of what they have been clamoring for while the Battlefield developers, DICE, gave their fans the very thing they’ve been wanting for years.

Fans of both franchises have spent several years trying to get either developer to go back in time, rather than move forward. The Call of Duty games have continued to surge further and further into the future, while fans have wished nonstop for them to return to the past. Gamers want an FPS (first-person shooter) set in a historical time period. They want to experience battles and events that actually happened, not a developer’s futuristic fantasy. The whole future gimmick lost its luster years ago, yet the makers of Call of Duty seem not to care. From Black Ops 2 to Ghosts, Advanced Warfare to Black Ops 3 and now Infinite Warfare, the developers just can’t seem to part with the future nonsense.

Then, just as the gaming community has fallen into madness and outrage, DICE descends from the heavens as a makeshift Messiah, bringing with them the gift of Battlefield 1. Still reeling from the horror that was the Infinite Warfare announcement, gamers everywhere were pulled from the brink of despair as DICE bestowed upon them the news that the new game would take place in World War I. Fans breathed a sigh of relief and rejoiced. Finally, finally, someone had listened – a developer had finally listened to their prayers.

And, really, that’s the major issue we’re dealing with here: communication. There’s absolutely no excuse for a developer blatantly ignoring fans. Now, I’m not saying that all community feedback should be taken and actually used one hundred percent of the time, but at the very least fans have the right to be heard. The only way a developer can truly grow and thrive is through building a relationship with its fanbase. There has to be communication. Clearly not all feedback, comments and suggestions should be implemented, but developers do need to listen. The fans can make or break a developer’s success and more of them really need to start realizing that.

The most obvious exemplification of this fact is the like to dislike ratios for both reveal trailers on YouTube. The trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has about 360,000 likes, but over 2 million dislikes while the Battlefield 1 has over 1 million likes and only 27,000 dislikes (and about 9 million more views). Naturally, we can’t take these numbers entirely at face value due to bandwagoning on both sides. But we can’t entirely dismiss them either. Numbers like these undoubtedly show a significant degree of unhappiness in the gaming community. So when someone like DICE comes in and gives them precisely what they want, there’s an immediately overwhelming response.

Of course, it would be decidedly idiotic of me not to discuss Modern Warfare Remastered. While many consider it a triumph for fans, it’s really more of Infinity Ward’s way of placating them while they continue to churn out more of the same stuff they don’t want. On top of this, they went several steps further in bundling it with Infinite Warfare AND making it a pre-order bonus, forcing gamers to pay over $100 to gain access to the one thing they do want (not to mention that it only comes with about half of the multiplayer maps that were in the original). As a result, the whole thing comes off as more of an insult to the fans than anything. It may be good marketing on the part of Infinity Ward, significantly less people would buy Infinite Warfare otherwise, but in doing so they’ve definitely lowered fan support substantially.

Communication between developers and fans is proven to be extremely important, as both DICE and Infinity Ward have learned this past week. DICE learned that actually listening to the community pays dividends, just as Infinity Ward learned how disastrous turning a deaf ear can be. With any luck, this will serve as a wake-up call not only to them, but to all game developers who have a habit of ignoring their fans.